Facts Frozen Out: Network News and Global Warming

Executive Summary

Polls from groups as diverse as Greenpeace and Citizens for a Sound
Economy show that most climate scientists are skeptical of claims that
the climate change of the 20th century has been a result of greenhouse
gas emissions. This is news to network reporters. A study from the
MRC's Free Market Project demonstrates that over the past five years
reporters have presented a highly distorted picture of the global
warming debate. Specifically, researchers found:

1) Thirty-nine of the 48 network evening news stories during the
study period simply assumed that science supports global warming
theories. Only seven stories mentioned that climate scientists are
skeptical of claims that humans are changing the earth's temperature.

2) Of the seven stories which did mention that scientists are
skeptical of global warming theories, only two brought up the actual
arguments of skeptical scientists. (There were two stories during the
study period that neither assumed climate change nor brought up
arguments against global warming.)

3) Only two of the 48 stories pointed out that some scientists
believe global warming, if it did occur, would be a boon to human
health and well-being. The other 46 stories assumed global warming
would be disastrous.

In order for their stories to be balanced, reporters must present
the arguments of the many climate scientists who are skeptical of
claims that humans are disastrously warming the planet. So far, such
scientists have rarely been heard from on the evening news.

Introduction

The theory that the earth is catastrophically heating up
because of industrial pollution has become one of the leading
environmental topics on network television news. Global warming is a
highly controversial issue, with most climate scientists unconvinced
that human actions are warming the planet, or that such warming would
even be harmful. Such views, however, do not make it into newscasts.
Instead, as with so many other issues, global warming is usually
portrayed in a science-and-activists-versus-industry paradigm.

Media Research Center analysts reviewed all of the stories about
global warming on ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, CNN World
News (The World Today, after March 1996), and NBC Nightly News from
January, 1993 through October, 1997. Researchers found 48 stories,
which were not evenly distributed throughout the years. Global warming
has become a bigger story lately, with more stories so far in 1997 (26)
than in all of the other years combined (22). The heavy coverage so far
in 1997 has been a result of White House public relations activities,
such as inviting of the nation's local television weathermen for a
presidential briefing. In 1993 and 1994, when the Democrats controlled
both houses of Congress and the White House but didn't push for action
on global warming, the networks were largely silent.

No Room for Scientific Debate

Out of the 48 stories during the study period, most (39) simply
assumed that science supports warming theories. Only seven stories
mentioned that many scientists are skeptical of global warming. Of
these seven stories, only two brought up the actual arguments of
skeptical climate scientists. (The remaining two stories were about
scientific efforts to measure the earth's warming; they neither assumed
science supports warming theories, nor mentioned arguments against such
theories.)

ABC's Peter Jennings has been the most adamant in claiming that the
scientific debate is over. On the April 5, 1995 World News Tonight,
Jennings argued that "it would only take a small increase in the
world's overall temperature to change life as we know it" and that
there was "new evidence that man may be turning up the thermostat." On
the November 30, 1995 broadcast, Jennings announced, "2,500 scientists
from around the world have finally agreed with one another and are
convinced that burning oil and coal is causing the world's temperatures
to rise, which may bring with it environmental disaster." On January 4,
1996, Jennings stated as fact that "the earth is getting warmer all the
time, in part because the United States has not been practicing what it
has been preaching." On the October 1, 1997 broadcast, he claimed that
pollution "has already changed the world's climate" and that "if man
doesn't stop tampering with the environment, the change in climate
could well lead to a world in which we have a very unpredictable
future." And then on October 22, 1997, Jennings told World News Tonight
viewers that "the overwhelming majority of scientists now agree
[climate change] is being caused by man." NBC's Brian Williams, on the
August 11, 1997 Nightly News, concurred. "Just about everywhere you
look these days there is wild weather to be found," Williams reported.
"Just tonight a wild storm swept through Denver with heavy flooding
rains, high winds and lots of damaging hail. Some experts are wondering
whether or not this kind of thing is related to global warming." CNN's
Leon Harris, on the July 24, 1997 World Today, chimed in that President
Clinton had met with scientists who "supported the President's
assertion that global warming is no longer a theory but a fact."

Others were a bit more balanced. "The earth does seem
to be heating," reported NBC's Robert Hager on the April 7, 1997
Nightly News, "some think because of pollution, others say it's just
cyclical." And although CNN's Cammy McCormick, on the October 6, 1997
World Today, said that "most [scientists] will tell you that the earth
is heating up and people are partly to blame," she pointed out that
"some climate scientists say they're not convinced about global
warming." None of these reports mentioned that nearly 100 climate
scientists signed the 1996 Leipzig Declaration, expressing doubts about
the validity of computer-driven global warming forecasts. And about
those 2,500 scientists Jennings mentioned, S. Fred Singer, professor of
environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, wrote in the July
25 Wall Street Journal: "If one were to add up all of the contributors
and reviewers listed in the three [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change] reports published in 1996, one would count about 2,100. The
great majority of these are not conversant with the intricacies of
atmospheric physics, although some may know a lot about forestry,
fisheries or agriculture. Most are social scientists -- or just policy
experts and government functionaries. Every country seems to be
represented -- from Albania to Zimbabwe -- though many are not exactly
at the forefront of research. The list even includes known skeptics of
global warming -- much to their personal and professional chagrin."

According to Dr. Singer, "Even some IPCC scientists, in the
report itself or in a May 16 Science article headlined 'Greenhouse
Forecasting Still Cloudy,' have expressed doubts about the validity of
computer models and about the main IPCC conclusion, that 'the balance
of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate'
-- whatever that ambiguous phrase may mean." He also pointed out that
most of the warming over the past hundred years occurred before 1940,
even though there were more carbon dioxide emissions after World War
II, and that "weather satellite observations, independently backed by
data from balloon-borne source sensors, have shown no global warming
whatsoever in the past 20 years." All of which leads Richard Lindzen,
professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
to conclude: "A decade of focus on global warming and billions of
dollars of research funds have still failed to establish that global
warming is a significant problem." Dr. Singer and Dr. Lindzen aren't
alone. Polls from groups as diverse as Greenpeace and Citizens for a
Sound Economy show that most climate scientists remain skeptical of
claims that the warming of the 20th century has been a result of
greenhouse gas emissions. This skepticism rarely makes it into news
reports.

Disaster Awaits

Not only did the networks report unquestioningly that humans were
warming the planet, but they were certain that such warming would lead
to disaster. Only two of the 48 global warming stories pointed out that
some scientists believe warming would be a boon to human health and
well-being. The other stories assumed warming would be bad. Scientists
"predict that global warming would add to the infectious disease
problem worldwide," claimed ABC's George Strait, on the January 16,
1996 World News Tonight. "As temperature areas become more tropical,
diseases such as malaria could spread."

On the October 7, 1997 Nightly News, NBC correspondent George Lewis
predicted that warming would lead to "wild swings in the weather, from
heavy rains to prolonged droughts, ruining crops all over earth." He
also ran a computer animation from an environmental group which "shows
how a three-foot rise [in sea levels] would flood New York City, cause
some of the Florida Keys to disappear, and expand San Francisco Bay all
the way into California's Central Valley." At ABC, correspondent Ned
Potter told January 4, 1996 viewers of World News Tonight that
"scientists say if [temperatures] keep going up as they have, heat
waves will spread across North America, a third of the world's glaciers
will melt, flooding coastlines in dozens of countries, tropical
diseases will spread, exposing large parts of the U.S. to malaria and
dengue fever." CBS correspondent Scott Pelley, on the October 22, 1997
CBS Evening News, said, "Scientists are already measuring the
destruction, from floods in American valleys to vanishing ice on world
peaks...In fact, it is happening all around the world -- the earth's
glaciers have been receding at an increasing pace over the last 100
years."

Dr. Singer, again, dispels these claims. "Judging from the
climate record of the last 3,000 years of human history, climate
consequences of a greenhouse warming should be generally beneficial,"
he wrote in a recent Science & Environmental Policy Project report.
"One would expect severe weather to be less frequent because of
(calculated) reduced equator-to-pole temperature gradients. In fact,
the frequency and intensity of hurricanes have decreased over the past
50 years, although the reason for this is not known." Dr. Singer also
suggests that fears about rising sea levels are overblown, because "new
research indicates that increased ocean evaporation [due to warming]
would lead to more rain -- and therefore to more ice accumulation in
the polar regions. As such, sea levels may actually drop." Patrick
Michaels, also a professor of environmental sciences at the University
of Virginia, points out that most of the warming of the globe would
occur during winter in the coldest air masses. "Warming up the planet's
coldest air masses clearly creates little harm," argues Michaels in a
June 30, 1997 Washington Post column, "because no plant or animal can
feel the difference between -40 degrees and -35 degrees." He further
writes: "All totaled, the effects of winter warming and little summer
change lengthens the growing season, costs less energy and is, in
general, hard to label as a big negative."

Expert Soundbite Sources

The skewed nature of the global warming debate in the media is
illustrated by whom network reporters interviewed for soundbites. In
the 48 stories during the study period, there were 60 soundbites from
those who thought global warming was a problem and favored drastic
policy solutions. Ten soundbites came from the other side, with only
two of those coming from scientists. (Fifteen soundbites came from
neutral sources.) Reporters often used soundbites to frame the debate
as being between science and environmental activists on one side and
industry on the other. On the October 22, 1997 NBC Nightly News, for
instance, correspondent David Bloom pitted the Sierra Club's Dan Becker
(who said the Clinton plan to curb greenhouse emissions "is like
fighting a five-alarm fire with a garden hose") against a
representative of the coal industry, who claimed the Clinton plan would
cost jobs. Scientists skeptical of global warming were ignored. NBC
News, though, did come the closest to balance of all the networks.
Twice the Nightly News used its "In Their Own Words" segment to allow
critics of global warming policies to speak. On the July 8, 1996
broadcast, Singer made the case against human-induced global warming
and then on October 7, 1997 Thomas Moore of the Hoover Institution
argued that global warming would extend growing seasons and, since
people in warmer climates live longer, aid public health. But these
were the exceptions. For the most part, the media debate over global
warming has been one-sided, with the legions of skeptical scientists
left out.

SCIENTISTS FOR JOURNALISTS TO CONTACT TO HELP BALANCE REPORTING ON GLOBAL WARMING

Sallie Baliunas

Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. for Astrophysics

(202) 296-9655

Richard Lindzen

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(617) 253-0098

Patrick Michaels

University of Virginia

(804) 924-7761

William Nierenberg

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

(214) 534-6126

Frederick Seitz (former President, National Academy of Sciences)

Rockefeller University

(212) 327-8423

S. Fred Singer

University of Virginia (also, Science & Environmental Policy Project)

(703) 503-5064

Chauncey Starr

Electric Power Research Institute

(415) 855-2909

Polls from groups as diverse as Greenpeace and Citizens for a Sound
Economy show that most climate scientists are skeptical of claims that
the climate change of the 20th century has been a result of greenhouse
gas emissions. This is news to network reporters. A study from the
MRC's Free Market Project demonstrates that over the past five years
reporters have presented a highly distorted picture of the global
warming debate. Specifically, researchers found:

1) Thirty-nine of the 48 network evening news stories during the
study period simply assumed that science supports global warming
theories. Only seven stories mentioned that climate scientists are
skeptical of claims that humans are changing the earth's temperature.

2) Of the seven stories which did mention that scientists are
skeptical of global warming theories, only two brought up the actual
arguments of skeptical scientists. (There were two stories during the
study period that neither assumed climate change nor brought up
arguments against global warming.)

3) Only two of the 48 stories pointed out that some scientists
believe global warming, if it did occur, would be a boon to human
health and well-being. The other 46 stories assumed global warming
would be disastrous.

In order for their stories to be balanced, reporters must present
the arguments of the many climate scientists who are skeptical of
claims that humans are disastrously warming the planet. So far, such
scientists have rarely been heard from on the evening news.

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